Born To Die
by livelong-andprosperb1tch
Summary: Don't lose sight of who you are. In which Elphaba dreams too far, and falls from grace and out of the Charmed Circle's lives. Many years later, by coincidence or fate, they meet again. But this time, the game has changed. Will they emerge unscathed, or irreparably wounded? -Diverges from canon just before Defying Gravity. AU. Dark musical verse. Fiyeraba/One sided Gliyero/Nessaboq-
1. Prologue

_**So I saw WICKED on Broadway a couple weeks ago. My life changed. I swear, that story synced with my soul. Yeah I'm waay too sappy. But the inspiration for this fic came from getting into Lana del Rey, and imaging a canon-plausible situation in which Elphaba becomes a singer of love ballads. So here we go. This is honestly more like the prolouge, so you can see my little spin on Elphaba. I've literally jam-packed this first chapter with references. Review with all the ones you spot, and you get digital cookies :) **_

_**Just to get this out of the way: FIYERABA IS THE OTP OF OTPS AND THE ONLY REAL CASE OF SOULMATES I'VE EVER SEEN. THE END. PERIOD. THANK YOU FOR STOPPING BY.**_

_**DISCLAIMER: I WISHED I OWNED WICKED. I DON'T. I wished I owned GoT/ASOIAF. I don't. All the bolded and italicized phrases belong to Lana del Rey. Most of the paragraph above the first lyrics belongs to Lana Del Rey. Boom.**_

_First Person POV (Elphaba)_

I once had dreams. Dreams of becoming a lawyer, a princess, an acclaimed sorceress, a Grand Vizer. But upon an unfortunate series of events,

I saw those dreams dashed like a million stars in the night sky. But I wished on, over and over again.

Sparkling and broken.

I was always an unusual girl.

**_Don't break me down_**

So here I was. Elphaba Melena Thropp. Barely scraping by as a traveling singer, crooning my sad stories to old drunkards and passing tourists.

I was going to be someone.

I was going to be someone who changed Oz, a revolutionary for the people and the Animals.

**_I've been traveling too far_**

"You're on in 5, Miss Diggs."

"Thank you, Jeremy." The middle aged stage manager slipped away under the cover of backstage darkness. I steeled myself to walk back out there, onto the dingy stage of the smoke filled bar.

**_Been trying hard not to get into trouble_**

I'd hated appearing weak to other people. But here, on stage, my weaknesses were my armor. My sad, sad, love story and childhood were my weapons of choice, accessorized with my "exotic" verdigris and smokey eyes.

Getting gigs was no trouble.

Frexspar once told me green skin was a "sin" by the Unnamed God. Glinda told me that if green skin was a sin, make sinning fun.

I took her advice to heart.

**_But I, I got a war in my mind_**

Clubs and dives found something to be desired, in a girl who looked like sin and sang of broken love and death. I personally didn't understand the attraction, but it got me by. I played the part of beautifully tragic songbird to magnificence. Every night. An enchanting witch, who put you under a spell the moment you walked in.

I was wicked.

**"Never forget who you are. The rest of the world won't. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you."**

I go by Fae Elle Diggs now. Elphaba Thropp had died in the Emerald City, burning like any hope I had for a bright future. I became numb to it all. Some people just aren't meant to greatness, and for all my gifts and curses, I wasn't one of them.

That had hurt the most.

Sinking into oblivion, falling into forgetfulness, existing in nobody's memories. Fiyero wouldn't include me in the stories of Shiz he would tell to his grandchildren. Glinda wouldn't give any child of hers my name. Boq would never breathe a word of his link to me. Nessarose too shamed by my failures to mention having an older sister.

That was life.

Perhaps when I died, the men I sang to would go home to their wives and tell them about the green skinned girl. The one who sang at that place on the corner ever Saturday night. The beautifully tragic one. The one who disappeared into dust and water.

**_I am alone at__ midnight_**

There hasn't been a night pass, where I don't think about the ones I used to know. My friends at Shiz. But I don't want to turn back the clock, or redo anything. I wasn't born to be the star I aspired to become. I wasn't meant to stay with Fiyero, to have a real family, to be Glinda's best friend or Nessarose's older sister.

I wasn't born to anything.

**_I just__ ride_**

Only meant to sink into mediocrity. Like everyone else.

I sing the words I couldn't say to them.

I tell Fiyero that I love him. I ask him to stay. I write his meaning to me into the hearts and ears of strangers. The parts of me I kept closed off were bared to the world. Just for them.

My apology.

Elphaba Thropp's pride was too large to say those precious words.

Fae Elle Diggs understood the truth of things. Enough to know that pride didn't matter when your highest standard of living was a dingy, rundown, motel room, with cockroaches in the shower. That if you wore your secrets as your armor, nobody could use them against you.

**_Live fast, die young, be wild, and have fun_**

I knew that they would never hear me. But it felt right. My penance. To traverse the outermost corners of the earth, telling of everything I'd run away from, to never know the sweet taste of forgiveness.

.

.

After everything I've done, my green skin was the last thing on my mind. As inconsequential as my popularity. The irony.

There wasn't anything left for me. Just my music, and I thought that was shitty. My magic had locked itself away in some dark corner of my soul many years ago. Intelligence wasted on sheet music and depressing lyrics. Money on cheap cigarettes and booze to block the dull ache of a home lost.

Like everyone else.

Isn't that what I always wanted?

**_Does this even make sense? I really want this to be my first 20+ chapter fic, so somebody please please please review and tell me whatchya think? LOVE U K BAI_**


	2. Blue Jeans

_**I finally finished this. Whoo. Obviously not as poetic as first chapter, but I'm thinking about alternating them so we get one in Elphie's head and another in someone else's perspective.**_

**_PSA: First chapter is kind of a prolouge. The rest of this fic will be in 3rd person POV, but it will switch between Fiyero, Elphaba, and Glinda. Return to your previously scheduled chapter._**

_**This chapter went through 2 rewrites. TWO. I just couldn't get it quite right. But here it is, two days late, but as close to perfect as it's gonna get. I couldn't write for half a day yesterday because my hand cramped up horribly from getting out this and the new chappies of Muggleborns Take Hogwarts. But I hope it's ok!**_

_**To those who reviewed (Elphabalover101 and PaintedLady901): THANK YOU SO MUCH. GAH. ILY. Y'ALL MADE MY DAY(S).**_

_**PaintedLady901: More musical, definitely AU, but I'm taking the book nicknames and some other stuff in the future (hint-hint-nudge-nudge). Actually this is pretty much really dark musical, so I'll go ahead and change that. Thanks for inadvertantly helping me out with that :)**_

_**Elphabalover101: SHE DOESN'T! But it makes a stellar story idea, soooooo. Hope you like this chapter!**_

_**DISCLAIMER: Songs belong to Lana. Wicked belongs to who owns it.**_

_**Song of the chapter: Blue Jeans**_

_**Songs of last chapter: Ride, Blue Jeans, Born To Die**_

Third Person POV (Fiyero)

Fiyero walked out of the hospital room, yawning and rubbing at the dark circles under his eyes.

"Hey. I just wanted to talk to you." Glinda's voice came out of nowhere, scaring him.

"Oh, Glinda. Look, I'm incredibly sorry for what I did to you and I really hope you can forgive me-" She laughed, effectively silencing him.

"It's ok." She whispered.

"You and her. You were meant to be. We were perfect. But you two are perfect together." She smiled sadly. Fiyero was stunned.

"You're- you're serious?" She rolled her eyes and punched him in the arm.

"Course I am, brainless." The hallway grew quiet.

"Is she any better?" He sombered at the mention of his love. Fae. His beautiful, strong, cancer wrecked Fae.

"No. No improvement." Tears watered in her blue eyes.

"Poor Elphie."

"I just- I don't understand why she would do this to herself. She knew what she was getting herself into. Elphaba knew everything. Why?" Pain throbbed through his chest, a poor mimic of what Elphaba was probably feeling that very second. If she wasn't in a coma.

He was lying. He knew why. Fiyero saw in his mind's eye what she was like the first time he saw her. Waiting to die.

"I love her so much. And she's dying. I just got her back, Glin. I can't watch her slip away from me. From us. Again."

_Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeeeep._

A plethora of activity in Elphaba's room drew their attention. Nurses and doctors began rushing in and out of her room, rolling in equipment and shouting instructions. _Elphaba._

'We're loosing her!"

"No pulse, Doctor. Restart her heart!"

"She's not breathing."

He ran towards the closing door. Fae was dying. _Fae was dying._

_Don't leave me._

"No! Let me in! Please! I have to be with her." He choked out the last words, Glinda collapsed in a nearby chair, sobbing her eyes out.

The door never opened.

**_8 months__ earlier_**

Fiyero stepped out of the carriage, inspecting the broken wheel.

"Your Majesty, we'll have to stop here overnight to get this fixed. My deepest apologies at this inconvenience."

"It is no problem. I have plenty of time." He briskly stepped through the sleepy town, searching for something open this time of night. Rain pounded on the outdated cobblestone and on his raincoat, filling his ears with the rhythmic sound of pitter patter.

It was quaint, he mused. Even under the cloak of darkness, this town in the middle of nowhere was quite lovely. The street was devoid of any other living creature, the shutters of the houses drawn tight against the storm. Lights and music of a bar further down the road drifted past him, and called him out of the rain.

The Vinkun prince passed through the doorway to find a small, dimly lit room, with a crowd of alcoholics and regulars. A green woman was on stage- green woman. There was only one green person he'd ever known was her. And she walked out of his life 5 years ago, taking his heart with him. _Elphaba_. No. _Not possible._ He paused, frozen by the figure who'd haunted his dreams ever since she'd disappeared.

"Thank y'all for coming out to see me so late, and on such a horrible night. I got a little treat for you, yeah?" Her voice was raspier and deeper then he remembered, hoarse and beguiling. She was beautiful under those spotlights, green skin glowing, red lips curving with a siren smile. So different, yet so familiar.

Oz, what was she doing here, in the middle of nowhere? She was supposed to be walking the halls of the Emerald City, laughing with Glinda, kissing him, reading her books and changing the world...

She still looked young, but seemed to carry the weight of a thousand decades on her shoulders, and her eyes spoke of knowledge and secrets beyond her years.

The joy of seeing her again was dulled by the pain of seeing her like- like this. Beaten down. Wearied. Tired of what seemed like everything.

"This next tune is something I wrote a long time ago, for a guy I loved a long time ago." Her lackluster brown orbs met his suddenly, widening almost imperceptibly with surprise.

"Blue jeans, white shirt, walked into the room you know you made my eyes burn" She kept staring at him while she sang. Elphaba sounded like broken glass and painful memories and torture of the most beautiful kind.

"It was like James Dean, for sure, you so fresh to death and sick as ca-cancer"

"You were sorta punk rock, I grew up on hip hop, you fit me better then my favorite sweater" He was falling.

"And I know, that love is mean, and love hurts, but I still remember that day we met in September oh baby" _Who was she singing about?_

"I will love you to the end of time." Her face tilted towards him, emerald skin glinting under the harsh lights of the bar. Her eyes had grown sad, telling Fiyero exactly who she was singing to.

"I would wait a million years." _Him._

**FLASHBACK**

_"You know I would wait a million years for you, Fae." She glanced at him skeptically from her homework._

_"I honestly doubt you would be alive long enough to make good on the promise, Yero." He leaned over and kissed her cheek._

_"I love you." The sweet smile on her face was enough of an answer._

**FLASHBACK END**

"Promise you'll remember that you're mine" He felt like throwing up, the alternating memories of saying those same things to her, and of his unwilling engagement to Glinda, clashing and tugging at his conscience.

"Baby can you see through the tears_._" She would know. It was all over the papers. He'd gone along with it for the sake of his best friend, but he had never loved her like he loved Elphaba. Never.

"Love you more, then those bitches before" She knew.

"Say you'll remember, oh baby, say you'll remember"

He remembered.

The way her hair glinted in the sunlight, her rare genuine laughs and smiles. The look on her face while reading a particularly intense book. Everything he tried to shut out when she left.

"I will love you till the end of time"

Appluase echoed around the hazy room, cheap cigarette smoke curling around the Prince.

"Thank you so much for having me tonight. Drink enough to keep the chill out, and have a good evening." She ducked under the curtain quicker then he thought, almost running from the bar. Running from him. He walked outside, looking to see where she might leave.

"Elphaba!" He reached out and gently grabbed her elbow. She whipped around to face him, panic and pain obvious under her makeup mask.

"I'm sorry, Fiyero."

She got into a carriage and sailed away from him.

Maybe she wasn't so different at all.

**_That's it. End chapter. A bit different from the first one. Did you guys like it? Review and tell me so! (shameless self promotion *looks away in shame*) If you want me to do first person POV like the prologue, drop a review. Thanks for reading! xD_**

**_(just realized how much I'm repeating some of these sentiments. lol)_**

**_-livelong-andprosper_**


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